[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 3, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H296-H297]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          STATE OF THE ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barrett of South Carolina). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, as the prior speakers were dealing with the 
foreign wars in which the United States is engaged, here at home the 
Bush administration has built an economy teetering on a house of cards, 
or should I say an exploding house of debt.
  There is more economic anxiety in our country than at any time that I 
can remember since the Reagan recession of 1982. President Bush is 
trying to act as if nothing is wrong, but people know better. They know 
something is wrong, something deeply wrong with America's economy here 
at home. They know that jobs are going overseas by the thousands, and 
they do not know how much worse things are going to get before they get 
better, or if they are ever going to get better.
  More and more people are wondering whether our jobs are ever going to 
come back. In my district, almost every week brings the news of another 
plant closing. This week it is Georgia Pacific, maker of Dixie Cups, 
leaving Sandusky, Ohio, and 206 long-time workers terminated. Hundreds 
and hundreds of family-owned tool and die and machine tool businesses 
in Ohio and the Midwest have fallen victims of unregulated competition 
from China.
  The manufacturing sector in the Nation's heartland is in the 
intensive care unit, and President Bush is offering Band-aids. He was 
in Ohio last week, he came to us empty-handed, but then he went around 
the country and raised millions more for his campaign coffers. In his 
State of the Union address delivered here, he did not even propose 
extending unemployment benefits for those workers who have lost their 
jobs.
  There is great economic anxiety in our land because workers do not 
know how much longer they can hold on to their health benefits. There 
is great economic anxiety in our land because people see Congress and 
the President giving $87 billion to Iraq and the President's corporate 
cronies, but leaving 43 million Americans without health care coverage.
  There is great economic anxiety because the average American family

[[Page H297]]

lives by a rule that Washington breaks every day. It is called the rule 
of balancing your checkbook. If a family bounces a check, their bank 
hits them with a fee for insufficient funds. But apparently that does 
not apply to President George Bush and his Republican Party. They have 
proposed the biggest budget deficits in history and call it economic 
progress.
  President Bush has proposed a back-breaking $521 billion budget 
deficit for this year. And when we add in the Social Security funds 
that they are borrowing, it is actually $709 billion. Next year, his 
deficit is proposed at $364 billion, but it is actually $607 billion if 
he does not raid the Social Security fund. And if he is as wrong this 
time as he has been in his fiscal projections in the first 3 years, the 
budget deficit for fiscal year 2005 will hit over $734 billion.
  That is the highest deficit in history, and that does not even count 
the additional funds that they are going to add for the war in 
Afghanistan. We seem to have a President who talks a lot about national 
security, but has forgotten about economic security.
  I can remember, coming from our family, what happened back in the 
1920s and 1930s when Washington spent with abandon. We know that Wall 
Street likes debt, but they like it too much, and they deal in paper 
wealth, not real wealth. And when our predecessors during the 1920s and 
1930s forgot the difference between real wealth and paper, and spent 
with abandon, they literally brought down America's families and 
financial system right around them. The dollar lost its value, and we 
face that precipice again.
  The Great Depression of the 1930s was the largest economic disaster 
our Nation ever experienced. Our family, like everyone else in the 
Nation, felt the impact of wild behavior on Wall Street and reckless 
government in Washington. Our family lost all their meager savings, and 
I am sure that the irresponsible people who have raided our people's 
401(k) plans have done the same thing in this modern day. Just ask the 
former employees of Enron. And I do not mean George Bush's close 
personal friend, Kenneth Lay. I mean the people who lost everything 
when the Lay scam was exposed.
  A look at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the largest hole 
in history. It is supposed to ensure our workers' pension benefits in 
private companies. It is over $11 billion in deficit. The President 
says it is not a crisis. It surely is a crisis when the largest 
instrumentality that we have to back up our workers' retiree benefits 
does not have the insurance to do it. He best pay attention.
  Mr. Speaker, the economic anxiety that is gripping America tonight is 
real. We are losing jobs to unfair trade agreements. The President 
wants to expand NAFTA. Workers are running out of unemployment 
benefits. The President says there is no crisis and, therefore, no need 
for extended unemployment benefits. Retirees are losing their pensions, 
and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is losing money hand over 
fist. The President says there is no crisis, but indeed the system is 
at risk.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, let me say to the American people the way to 
change our Nation for the better is for people to register to vote from 
coast to coast. If we can change the captain of our floundering Ship of 
State, we can put firm new leadership at the helm and begin moving 
again toward a better tomorrow for all.

                          ____________________